In development of a therapeutic agent for metabolic diseases such as obesity, diabetes and arteriosclerosis, there are many difficulties in developing a new medicine, since the drugs which initially showed excellent efficacy in vitro had reduced efficacy in animal experiments in vivo. In order to solve the problem, there is needed a similar in vitro model to an in vivo model, which allows correct efficacy and toxicity to be predicted from the early stages of drug development.
In vivo such as human cells and tissue, growth and differentiation by interaction between cells occur, thereby having a complicated three-dimensional structure. However, the method used for cell or tissue culture in laboratories and the like corresponds to two-dimensional culture, and thus, there are many difficulties in studying the function of in vivo tissue or the reaction actually occurring in tissue.
For studying the reaction of in vivo tissue and the functions thereof, the research using three-dimensional scaffolds is actively proceeding in the fields of tissue engineering or biotechnology, and the research such as a cell differentiation mechanism, disease therapeutic agent development and tissue regeneration is being applied by implanting three-dimensional artificial tissue scaffolds (Korean Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 10-2013-0119663). However, the three-dimensional scaffolds are artificially manufactured, and since the in vivo structure composed of interaction between cells, such as real tissue or organs is so diverse and complicated, there is a technical limitation in forming a similar structure such as tissue.
In order to solve the existing problems and develop a new medicine for metabolic diseases, the present inventors have developed a culture method allowing different cells from each other to represent the similar function to that of adipose tissue through interaction between cells in a three-dimensional environment like in vivo.